ROYAL OAK — About 100 volunteers walked side by side through Tenhave Woods to drive out any deer and prevent their return to the nature conservancy near 13 Mile and Crooks roads.

A long line of Boy Scouts, senior citizens and nature lovers made their way on Saturday across the 20-acre woodland next to the soccer fields behind Royal Oak High School. They formed a line of defense to save the wildflowers of the unique ecosystem from becoming deer feed in the spring.

After the effort to flush out any remaining deer confirmed that none were there, two sets of gates that had been left open in case there was a bolting Bambi were locked.

“I don’t think any deer will manage to use the turnstiles so hopefully they are gone,” said Ted Vickers, a member of the Royal Oak Nature Society, which organized what he calls a “deer walk through.”

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While chance encounters with the lovely creatures have delighted Tenhave Woods visitors since about 2005, the growing number of fawns, does and bucks took a toll on the forest floor last spring and summer.

About 15 deer fed on what had been a stunning array of wildflowers, reducing them to stems and threatening their survival.

Something had to be done to prevent further feeding frenzies or in five years native species of plants dating back to the 1800s would have been lost forever, Vickers said.

“In five years the deer would have left, too. Then, we’d have nothing,” he added.

Last fall, RONS raised the fence around Tenhave Woods from six- to eight-feet tall to prevent the athletic animals from leaping inside. On Saturday, the non-profit group took steps to drive out any deer that might still be.

No deer or even hoof prints in the snow have been seen recently but Vickers said RONS needed to follow up on its plan to cage out the animals with a walk through to satisfy a requirement of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“It’s a novel idea,” Vickers said. “We checked the Internet and we think the eight-foot fence will work. I can’t see a deer jumping more than twice its height but we will see.”

The nature society was pleased to have so many volunteers help. In the fall, they installed metal poles on the existing fence and strung thin lines of cable between them to raise it two feet. They made sure the deer are gone on Saturday.

“I counted 75 people at first and then more showed up,” Vickers said. “We had some long-time members in their 80s come from Detroit. We were really surprised to have at least 100 people on a snowy cold day.”

He isn’t sure where the deer are. He said they have been seen at Oakview Cemetery near 12 Mile and Rochester roads.

“It was nice to have them. They are a big draw but they were causing more harm than good,” Vickers said.

White-tailed deer had feasted on thousands of White Trillium, Red Trillium, Wood Poppy, Mayapple and Solomon’s Seal. The nature society botanist, Don Drife of Troy, said it was time to manage the deer to protect the plants of an ecosystem classified as a wet-mesic flatwoods.

Drife said Tenhave is a very rare forest with fewer than 10 like it in all of Michigan. Plant and flower lovers have come from as far away as Flint to see its 300 species of plants, trees and wildflowers.

Come spring, the wildflowers have a shot at being the star attraction at Tenhave Woods again.